Like his fellow Yellow Magic Orchestra alumnus Ryuichi Sakamoto, keyboardist and programmer Haruomi Hosono has a taste for exotic experimentation.
But the similarities pretty much end there.
Sakamoto's solo work runs to a sort of light contemporary classical music, and his collaborations have tended to be with pop musicians.
On N.D.E., Hosono teams up with a host of sidemen both famous (bassist Bill Laswell) and obscure (saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu, violinist Arun Bagal) to create a beautiful, funky, and yet strangely creepy collage of electronic beats, modal melodies, and exotic samples.
Not surprisingly, Laswell's is the strongest presence here -- on "Navigations" he pretty much takes over with his trademark punchy basslines and samples of North African ululations, while the textures and drones of "Edge of the End" recall his own Hear No Evil album of a few years earlier.
Another strong voice here is that of Bagal, whose keening modal violin make "Strange Attractor" and "Aero" two of the most compelling items on this album.
Highly recommended.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spinning Spirits | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 06:01 | 13 MB | 25 MB |
| 2 | Navigations | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 09:28 | 21 MB | 56 MB |
| 3 | Teaching of Sphinx | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 06:28 | 14 MB | 33 MB |
| 4 | Strange Attractor | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 09:48 | 22 MB | 47 MB |
| 5 | Heliotherapy | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 04:23 | 10 MB | 21 MB |
| 6 | Higher Flyer | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 06:01 | 13 MB | 27 MB |
| 7 | Edge of the End | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 08:37 | 19 MB | 43 MB |
| 8 | Aero | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Play | 06:31 | 14 MB | 34 MB |
| 57 mins | 131 MB | |||||
| 57 mins | 289 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harry "Haruomi" Hosono | Bass, Keyboards, Primary Artist |
| 2 | Bill Laswell | Producer |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |